BroadSword Unmanned Aircraft System to help Army counter threat of enemy UAVs

Robin Conn/The Huntsville TimesGriffon Aerospace employees - including President Larry French with his hand on the plane - pose beside the first production unit of the BroadSword Unmanned Aircraft System they developed for the Army. BroadSword is a 500 pound class, 17 foot wing span aircraft that will be used primarily as a target for troops learning to defend against UAS systems, but it is also capable of carrying a variety of payloadsMADISON - Larry French is extremely proud of the results of all the work he and his team of employees at Griffon Aerospace have put in over the last few years to design, develop and, now, deliver their "Broadsword" Unmanned Aircraft System to the Army.

But he hopes some of the aircraft they labor over are soon destroyed.

The first of 20 production MQM-171A Broadsword Unmanned Aerial Vehicles rolled out of the Griffon facility last week for delivery to the Army's Targets Management Office. The plane is designed primarily to train troops to defeat unmanned aircraft used by our enemies, said French, Griffon's president and chief technical officer

"It's of similar size, similar capabilities to tactical UAVs that are being deployed around the world," he said, as many of Griffon's more than 50 employees gathered behind the BroadSword for a photograph.

They didn't just design, test and produce the aircraft here.

Under the five-year, $1.9 million contract Griffon won in 2009, they will also deliver a number of rail launchers for the planes, ground-control stations, shipping containers, engineering, depot maintenance and flight services, and more.

"We design, build and then go fly for the Army all over the world. That is particularly unique," French said. "We're a one-stop shop."

The BroadSword itself has a 17-foot wingspan, can carry a 500-pound payload and comes in at under $100,000. This version can be flown from a laptop computer, has no landing gear and is launched along rails and then belly-lands after its mission, so it was designed to be robust, repairable and reused many times.

"We needed this product so badly that we couldn't wait for this one to come off the line," said Al Brown, director of the Army's Target Management Office at Redstone Arsenal.

"We used the prototypes - the ones that Larry used to prove he could meet our requirements - for government tests. That's how badly we needed them."

The Army and other services are developing weapons systems to detect and defend against the growing dangers posed by remotely piloted or autonomous unmanned aircraft, Brown said, a hand resting on his new UAV.

"It's unbelievable what you can put inside this and how you can augment this drone to replicate many bad guys and their weapons systems," Brown said. "Everyone has these. Everyone. So we have to be the best prepared we can."

"We've always looked at defeating big, fast threats" like missiles or jets, French said. "Suddenly, now there is the capability around the world to fly little tiny things that can do a lot of damage.

"This is a part of teaching our warfighters, how do we shoot down something slow that is very difficult to see?"

Brown said that having the Broadsword in its fleet means the Army won't have to pull UAVs the soldiers need from the field for training, or to carry cameras and payloads being tested for use on other unmanned systems.

Griffon also makes the smaller Outlaw UAS for the targets program, but the Army discovered additional uses for the relatively inexpensive craft, French said.

And he expects the same thing will happen with the BroadSword.

"It's kind of a flying truck to carry things in it to develop new sensors," he said.

Brown said that having this new UAS's developer and manufacturer in Madison, near the TMO office on Redstone Arsenal, cut thousands of travel dollars, reduced mistakes due to miscommunication and trimmed at least 30 percent off the time it usually takes to get a product like this into the Army's hands.

Madison Mayor Paul Finley made it clear the city doesn't take the growing Griffon and its work force for granted.

"You can't forget what you have, you build on what you have," Finley said.

Meeting the Griffon employees and seeing the new UAV they're producing to help the soldiers,

"You realize that Madison is not just a bedroom community and there is ample opportunity for quality businesses like this to prosper," he said.